Collage: From Pen to Pastepot

When Czechoslovakia eased travel restrictions about five years ago,
Western intellectuals ventured there
with the wary air of men exploring some dark continent. They were
surprised to dis cover that many Czechs were familiar with the plays of
Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee, and had kept abreast of other Western
cultural developments. If they dropped into Prague's Café Slavia around
4 p.m. any afternoon, they could have encountered several of the reasons why.
A group of artists and writers who meet there have for years
been assiduously importing and translating Western books,...